


Little Broken Things

by inwhispersandscreams



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, TW: Drugs, TW: addiction, TW: drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwhispersandscreams/pseuds/inwhispersandscreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"You give me the compass, I give you the contract for a man who stole your heart and the one favour he signed away. You can ask him to do anything you like, and he must do it. You can take his own heart, if you like. An eye for an eye, as they say.”</em>
</p>
<p>Aurora lacks a heart, and Captain Hook owes her a favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Broken Things

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: snakesandadders (Tumblr).
> 
> TW: drug, drug use, addiction. Enjoy!

The closer they moved to the portal, the steadier the compass needle pointed in Aurora’s hands.

She knew why. She _felt_ the growing distance between herself and her disembodied heart and knew, without a doubt, that the increasing steadiness in the compass needle corresponded directly to that increasing distance. It made sense, and there was some small measure of comfort in that.

_The compass will guide you to your heart’s desire_ , Hook had said, and that had been one of the few truths he’d said in her presence. In the hands of the others, the compass needle swung about wildly, pointing north and south in equal measure, but in her hands, it found a bearing. Their wants were conflicted, muddled by emotion, but without her heart, all Aurora’s wants were channelled into what she knew she _should_ want. She should want to return Emma and Snow White home, to find a portal back to Storybrooke, to restore the two worlds to their rightful states, and to those wants, Aurora channelled the whole of herself into them.

Before, closer to Cora and her heart, she could still feel it. If she closed her eyes and listened carefully, she could hear the steady sound of her heart, still feel it if she laid a palm across her chest, but those sounds and sensations had faded as the leagues of distance grew. Before, she could still feel something, still thought of Philip and longed to right the wrong that had been done to him, but those too had faded away like dreams and memories, til nothing was left but this purpose.

All that she had left was the purpose of guiding them home. No one could stand against Cora; her heart was lost, Philip too, both cruelly stolen with no hope of being regained. Whatever chance of a happy ending she had had, had been lost and torn from her. That life, Aurora felt, was over. What right did she have to it anymore? In what world would it work? A heartless girl and a soulless boy, too broken to have a happy ending, not even in their world. True love’s kiss could break a curse, but it couldn’t restore what had been lost.

But a heartless girl could use a compass. That much, she could still do.

“Mind telling me how much further you lot are going to drag me along? These cuffs are starting to chafe, you know.”

She was almost surprised that she could still feel indignation, though the sensation of it was smaller than it should have been. Hook’s very life was a gift to him, rather than a right he had earned. After all, he had played them, releasing her to allow Cora to play her like a puppet, whispering words through her mouth to mislead her companions. And, for all of that, he still had expected them to take him to Storybrooke, to allow him to barter for his passage, when they had successfully bound Cora using the Dark One’s ink.

Emma had wanted to leave him behind, and Mulan had agreed with her, mistrusting in him, but it had been Snow who had persuaded them to take him along, clapped in iron chains when he had exclaimed, in one last attempt to prove the value of his life, that he knew where Aurora’s heart was kept. It was the first they had heard of the theft of it, and the first time that Aurora had been able to speak her own words since it had been taken, just an abandoned puppet that had somehow learned to move without a puppeteer. Mulan had wanted his heart then, but Snow had soothed her, promised that they would retrieve Aurora’s heart as soon as possible, as soon as they had the portal open and access to one who could restore her heart to her without damage.

There was a sound of clinking metal, and Aurora turned her head in time to see Mulan yank at the chains binding Hook, her expression one of tightly controlled fury. _I failed Philip, I failed to protect you_ , Mulan had said, but in the face of Aurora’s own inability to keep what should have impossible to remove from her, to keep something so intrinsic and needed as her _heart_ , Aurora didn’t think that Mulan failed at all. It had been her, _always_ her that failed. “Not long now,” she answered, voice impassive and cool. As always, Mulan blanched that the sound of her speaking, at the impersonal and unemotional way she moved and reacted.

_We’ll get you your heart back, and Philip his soul. We’ll reunite you both. I swear it Aurora, I_ swear _it_. But all the promises Mulan made meant nothing – even if they found her heart, even if Hook didn’t betray them again and lead them astray or crush it under the heel of his boot, they had no way or knowledge of how to restore it to her, or how to restore Philip’s soul to him.

_We’ll just have to content ourselves with being two little broken things instead, and learn to live as such._

It wouldn’t be so hard, she supposed; her mother had always told her she was much too stubborn for her own good. Perhaps it might even be _good_ to be without her heart.

Her eyes moved to Hook’s, and saw his own recoil from her detached gaze. _Why are you so afraid?_ Aurora thought, her eyes remaining steady on his. Whatever sly remark he had prepared and on the tip of his tongue fell away in the face of her constant, cold eyes, looking away before four seconds had passed. _You made me like this in the first place. You stole my heart and let others play it like I used to play a harp, plucking and pulling at the strings so vehemently that my body was forced to follow. Why should you get to turn your eyes away from what you caused?_

He didn’t hear her thoughts – even taking her heart has not given him such powers as the ability to know what crossed through her mind – and he didn’t speak to her again until they reach the patch of ground where the compass began to spin in constant circles.

The stolen wardrobe ashes slid through Emma’s fingers – just like her blood should have slid through his fingers, if he hadn’t stolen her heart through dark magic, but instead pried it from her chest with the wicked, gruesome hook that has replaced his left hand – and where the ashes fell, the ground cracked open, a geyser of water spurting upwards like the fountains that used to adorn her palace gardens. When the flow of water subsided into a puddle that pools around their feet, there were nervous glances, clutching of hands together, wary expressions, but none on Aurora’s face and no hands grasp at hers.

It hit her then, suddenly and with great impact – she no longer had a purpose, her part in the story over and done with. She had guided them home, and now the heartless girl must go back to whatever she did before. The prospect of sleeping again is the sole thing that broke through to her enough to cause _real_ emotion, _real_ expression of those sensations in her body’s reaction – her phantom heart, barely heard and barely felt, beat faster at the thought of lying back down to sleep the rest of her life away, her palms sweating and breath coming painfully short into her chest. There was nothing here in this world but sleep and a soulless boy who lost his all coming to find her. All she had left was a palace overrun by nature and reminders of dreams that would no longer be fulfilled. This world had nothing left to offer her, and the world they come from, _Storybrooke_ , might hold nothing for her either, but at least it wouldn’t be _this_. At least it won’t be filled with the reminders of all she had come to lose.

So when Emma asked who might take try the portal first, it was Aurora who stepped forward. It might have been counted as fearlessness, she supposed, but for that emotion, it required her to feel fear, to know it and combat it. Aurora didn’t feel fear, not in the face of anything excepting a long, cursed sleep and the strange dream world she was forced to wander for three decades, or the burning room she returned to now in place of dreaming. Those could disappear in time, if she was treated by those who knew magic, the fairies or worse yet, the Dark One. It was something to hold onto, something to grasp at, a purpose, a driving force, a goal to reach for.

So she stepped through the portal, inhaling air from one world and exhaling it in another, more aware of the silence in her chest than the strange new things around her. A hand pressed against her breast, waiting to feel the _thump thump_ of her phantom heart underneath her palm, but finding only a silence, both in mind and body, the distance between the worlds too large to be bridged even by the call of a body to its heart.

And when Hook followed them, Aurora felt no indignation or rage or fury in the way he avoided her gaze, or the smug look on his face at finally, _finally,_ finding himself in the same realm as Rumplestiltskin.

In fact, she felt nothing at all.

 

 

“We need to go back home now, Aurora.  We need to get your heart back.”

It was easy to ignore Mulan, to let the words wash over her like water. Any weight they may have carried was lost with all the other emotions held in her heart. _No, not lost. Misplaced. Far, far away, back in the Enchanted Kingdom, where my heart is_. It was easy to pretend that she didn’t want to return because she saw no reason to pretend that with a lack of her heart, came a lack of valuing it, but that was not the truth of it.  

Aurora could still recall the way those emotions had felt, likening them to physical sensations she could properly articulate – warm sunlight had become happiness, and shivering, cold, due to winter rain had become sadness to her mind – she simply couldn’t feel them any longer. She _knew_ they existed, _knew_ that she was capable of love like fire and anger like lightning crashing down from the Heavens as well, but couldn’t bring herself to want to return to the Enchanted Kingdom to find even just a small measure of happiness. Because with happiness, there was also sorrow, powerful longing for a soulless boy who could not be restored to her, and grief, overwhelming and consuming – that Aurora recalled as well – for her lost family, lost love, and lost land.

She wasn’t happy here, nor was she content, but even the blankness of this existence was better than the sorrow that would follow her if she found her heart again.

“I wonder what it would have been like, had we been here when the curse was.” She didn’t need to say the other words; they played across both of their minds. If the Dark Curse had taken them, rather than sparing them, then Philip would never have met the wraith that had taken his very self away from him, and Aurora would still have her heart. There would have been twenty eight years of unhappiness, but then a future of bright, radiant happiness to behold. That, Aurora could have taken. But this? Twenty eight years of wandering through a dreamscape that tormented her, and no future to behold? It felt more like a Dark Curse than anything the inhabitants of Storybrooke had experienced.

 

 

The emptiness was a consuming void, a black hole in her chest that sucked her dry. She had never realised just how crucial her heart could be, until it was no longer there, and she could feel the absence of every emotion within her like a gaping chasm. It was more than simply lacking in the highest and strongest of emotions; even the subtler ones were missing. There was no such thing as peacefulness or relaxation, no serenity or joy, simply _nothing_. It wasn’t static or white noise, nothing even _attempted_ to fill that gap, and therefore, made it that much wider and more noticeable to her.

All around her, people laughed and grimaced and cried. They threw tantrums and were affronted and fell in love, and all of those things Aurora remembered, but couldn’t feel, not even if she tried.

Her life took on a routine: breakfast with Mulan at a quarter past seven each and every morning, and then, at eight on the dot, arrival at Storybrooke Senior High School to complete a day of classes. The hours in between the end of school and the end of Mulan’s work, Aurora spent at Granny’s Diner, sitting at a window seat and observing the people as they walked by, naming the emotions they experienced by their expressions, and wishing that she could still be jealous of them for that simple pleasure of simply _feeling_.

When it got to be too much, when each named emotion only serves to prompt memories of times when she herself experienced them, Aurora would place a hand to her chest, close her eyes, and imagine the feeling of her heart beatuntil Mulan came to the diner and together, they both walked home. Sometimes, Aurora would humour Mulan and do more than simply sit in her room and complete whatever homework had been assigned to her; sometimes she would listen to the strange type of music that was heard on the radio, or watch the plays on the television, but she grew to be easily bored by them. She could understand the actions of the characters, but couldn’t connect to them, or empathise to their plights. She couldn’t laugh at the jokes, only fake tight smiles in attempts to soothe Mulan’s worry.

_They always said heartless as if it meant to be cruel_ , Aurora had thought, _but that’s wrong. Heartless people can’t even be cruel. You can’t be anything at all._

She was a marionette with its strings cut away, and like the puppet, she had fallen into a heap of wooden limbs and a lifeless face.

 

“Hello, dear. I’ve been searching for you.”

It was a mockery, even if Rumplestiltskin didn’t mean it to be so. Everyone always searched for her, but she never moved, always found in the same places – in the Sands whilst she was asleep, and now here at Granny’s Diner. “I’ve hardly been inconsistent in my whereabouts, sir,” she answered back stiffly as he took a seat opposite her, back straightening instinctively. _This is the Dark One, and he would destroy everything just to watch it burn_. It wasn’t fear, or wariness, but logic that prompted her to draw herself back and hold herself away. He took hearts, made deals that were double edged, deals that you would regret as soon as the shine was rubbed away to reveal the dark, rotting core of it. Her father had warned her of his kind, her mother had held him with fear. _We do not treat with sorcerers Aurora. They bring nothing but disaster and trouble with them_. “But had I known that you were searching for me, I would not have kept you looking.” The tight smile felt odd and out of place on her expression, so unused to it now, only her memories of lessons with her mother in how to dress and act as befitting her noble birth that prompted it to exist at all.

“Of course, of course,” he said, taking the hat from his head and placing it on the table. He looked different from the man she had seen, just once, in her parents’ palace. His skin was as smooth as hers, and his eyes no more wild than hers were, no longer the memory of strangely coloured skin and a lilting voice that sang out its threats. “I’ve come to offer you something, Princess, if you have half a mind to hear it.”

“I make no deals with sorcerers, no matter how powerful they may be,” Aurora replied instantly, jaw clenching as a ghost of a smile flicked across Rumplestiltskin’s face. They called him Mr. Gold here, but he was still the Dark One, still Rumplestiltskin, and no matter how different the two worlds were, Aurora would not treat with sorcerers. Her family had been treated too roughly and callously by their kind of risk any kind of interaction again.

“Yes, your mother said something to the same effect. Unfortunate, that. I might have been able to tell her of Maleficent’s plan for you… for a price, of course. But that is neither here nor there, is it? Do you want something, Princess?” he asked, and Aurora jerked at the sudden change in conversation, blue eyes following the movement of Rumplestiltskin’s arm to gesture to the menu. “I have it on good authority that the hamburgers here are simply the best that can be found.”

She shook her head, pressing her lips together to stop herself from speaking. Whatever she said, whatever she did, could be a trap, all part of the game that they had begun playing as soon as Rumplestiltskin had spoken the first word to her. Her mother’s lessons drifted through her mind as the silence between the two stretched, strangely taut and thick, and, finally, Aurora managed to reply in the face of his expectant expression. _He’s waiting for me to make a wrong move, isn’t he?_ “No, thank you. I have enough.”

He observed her face carefully, eyes intent on hers, but Aurora refused to turn away. _I am a Princess of the Sands, and I am not easily cowed._  At length, he nodded, drawing his hand back and clasping his hands together. “Shall I be direct then, your highness? I find myself in the rare position of wanting something, your compass, to be exact. I’m a fair man – of course, I shall give you something for it.” He smiled at her, white straight teeth being revealed. For one moment, Aurora was tempted to tell the man in front of her that she had used to believe that he had possessed fangs, rather than teeth. “Name your price, Princess, and we can decide from there.”

What use did he have with her _compass_? It worked only if you were focused, knew _exactly_ what it was that you wanted, and refused to even so much as _think_ of anything else that you might covet or desire. Once more, her lips pressed together firmly as Aurora turned his words over in her mind, examining them as if she could reveal the trick behind Rumplestiltskin’s words.  There _had_ to be a trick – someone as powerful as the Dark One didn’t simply _ask_ for things when he could obtain them with a click of his fingers. Her hand reached to her bag, drawing back the flap and searching for the compass, the cool metal of it comfortable and familiar in her hand. She could recall all of the compass’ details, and there was nothing more to it than its function as a compass. There was no magical incantation written on its surface, no strange metallic pattern which could make it serve as a key. All it was, and all it would ever be, was a compass that led you to your heart’s desire. Without her conscious knowledge, she shook her head, a knee jerk reaction to the deal offered to her. “No. I don’t… I don’t make deals with sorcerers.”

His face was pained, the smile falling from his face. It made her question just what it was that the man in front of her wanted to find, what he desired to find in the new strange world around him. Or did he want to find something in the Enchanted Kingdom, as barren and desolate as it had become after the Dark Curse had flooded through it as an instrument of a dark queen’s wrath? And how was she, a little Princess with no kingdom and no heart to her name, meant to stand in the way of a Dark One and what they wanted? “What can I offer you, sweet Princess, for that compass? I know what it points to, how it works, and I would pay handsomely for such a thing. Do you want riches? Dresses? A tiara greater than any other?”

“Do you think I’m simply a spoiled princess?” she challenged, brow furrowing together. It was all they ever thought of her, a damsel of simple desires and a simple mind, unable to know what she wanted without help. But she did – she knew what she wanted, and what she didn’t. Her hands rose up to the table, clutching desperately to the compass, trying to remind the man in front of her that for all of her words, she still possessed the compass. It was all that she had, to keep her safe; she had something he wanted, and while he wanted it, she was safe, so long as he didn’t decide to pry it from her dead hands. “ _I want my heart,_ Rumplestiltskin. I want what was stolen from me, but I won’t make a deal with you that would make me rue the day I made it.”

Rumplestiltskin nodded, Aurora frowning at the single action. If he knew that she knew what his deals were, at their very heart, then why would he stay? She had never felt more like the helpless damsel that they all took her as, hopelessly behind in their game. Whatever it was that Rumplestiltskin knew, she didn’t, and the lack of her knowledge was apparently. “Alas my dear, it won’t do you much good to have it,” he replied, eyes flicking down to the compass in her hands before rising to meet her once more. “And before you demand it Princess, I would not trade you your heart for that compass. It would be best if you forget about it, I believe.”

“ _Why?_ ” The word burst from her lips. She _knew_ it was still there, and as time wore on, she desired to find it more and more. One could only take so much of the crushing blankness that came from having a missing heart, but Aurora couldn’t bear to return to the Enchanted Kingdom, to see her kingdom destroyed and her lost love. “ _Can’t_ you, of all people, return a heart, or a _soul_ , to someone? Can’t it be undone?”

The look was so fleeting that she was almost sure it was her imagination, but Aurora thought she saw pity in his expression. “No, dearie. Magic leaves a mark on all it touches. It comes, as you well know, with a price,” was his simple reply, and just like that, with those simple words, it was as if the air has escaped from the diner. _There’s no hope for either of us_. “Your heart would destroy you, should it ever be placed once more in your chest, Princess. The darkness that pulled it out, my dear, would start to eat you should it ever be put back in. Your heart is changed, for the worse.”

_I am a Princess, and a Princess does not show weakness._ The defeat that bowed her back was banished from her mind, and Aurora straightened. “Then you have nothing I want, Rumplestiltskin, and one cannot make a trade if one lacks something to give the other,” she managed, praying that the man would leave her be to dwell on the impossibility of Mulan’s desire to ever restore her heart to her, or Philip’s soul to him. _We are broken things that cannot be fixed. How sad it must be to think of_.

“Surely there are other things you might want, dear. What about this?” Long fingers pulled a scroll from the inside of Rumplestiltskin’s coat with a flourish and placed it before her, the roll of paper neatly contained with a bow tie. She stared at it, unsure if she wanted to pull the string and reveal its contents. “The pirate who stole your heart managed to escape from the Storybrooke jail last night, and made the misguided move as to confront me for conceived… _wrongs_. I agreed to spare him his life, when he decided to barter with me.” He claimed to have information that I would greatly enjoy.”

“He always said you took something from him,” she remembered, and was surprised to see the Dark One nod, yet again.

“Yes, but he took something from me first. My wife Milah, actually,” he informed her as Aurora played with the end of the bow, before tugging it undone and smoothing the roll out in front of her. “Surprised? Well, I doubt you are given your… condition.” The look on Rumplestiltskin’s face was almost apologetic as he delicately stated the last word. _He’s humouring me, trying to win my favour._ But _why_? Aurora didn’t understand. By all accounts, the Dark One was ruthless, and took what he wanted by force. What game was he playing with her, or had the Dark Curse changed him so much as well? “You’d have thought it was all said and done, considering how much time has passed, but he holds quite a grudge. I try to take his heart, take my wife’s, he tricks me, I take a hand, he swears to destroy me… it’s a great tale to be told, if I may be so bold.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her fingers played with the edges of the paper as she observed Rumplestiltskin. _You’ll regret any dealings you have with sorcerers, Aurora. Don’t trust them._

“So you understand me, Princess. I offer you Hook because I understand your anger. He’s a selfish man, and he takes things as he pleases. Please, feel free to peruse the contract.”

Slowly, Aurora let her eyes drift down to scan the print, silence falling between the pair as she took in the words and her brow furrowed. “But this contract… it’s not information in exchange for safe passage.” Aurora frowned, reading the words written in the small, fine print, her mind telling her to push the man away and leave. _If he tricked Hook, he’ll trick me, all to get what he wants._

The grin on the Dark One’s face when she glanced up again chilled her. Despite his pleasant demeanour, underneath it Aurora knew that he was still the same man whose very name sent fear piercing the hearts of all her people. _Not my people anymore. Not a Princess if there’s no kingdom._ “How observant of you, my dear. No, it’s not. Hook, so _eager_ to save his skin, signed a deal that said he owed me a favour. I thought, perhaps, that he may have tricked me, and such a thing might be… _prudent_ , shall we say? But then he told me of _you_ , and the compass you hold. I propose this my dear, a simple exchange of wares. You give me the compass, I give you the contract for a man who stole your heart and the one favour he signed away. You can ask him to do anything you like, and he must do it. You can take his own heart, if you like. An eye for an eye, as they say.”

It would be justice, her mind told her that. He had taken her heart and given her body over to Cora, let her be played like a puppet, and now she could do the same. _Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you_ , her mother had said. Maybe Hook deserved to be in contract to her. Maybe it would be as close as she could get to closure. “So, there will be no deal? No hidden catch? The favour he owes is mine, and the compass is yours?” Aurora asked, meeting Rumplestiltskin’s gaze warily. _Never make deals with sorcerers Aurora, for magic has a price_ ; her mother had said that to, but the desire for justice – not revenge, she could no longer feel the anger required for it – burned through her and erased her sense of caution and the doubts she harboured. He had stolen her _heart_ …

“Well, you can’t return it if he finds a way to escape your favour and trick you, but otherwise, yes, though, if we both find our ends of the bargain to be… unsatisfactory, I do suppose we can arrange a mutual returning of respective property.” Rumplestiltskin’s voice was silky smooth, and all too calm. _How much does he gain from this? How much do I_ lose _?_ But there was no time to think of it – the Dark One’s fingers drummed onto the surface of the table, the veneer of patience and ease fading as his body shifted, hands occasionally creeping forward towards the compass in Aurora’s hands. “Do we have a deal then, Princess?”

Aurora nodded, almost afraid to say the words, and carefully placed the compass on the table. With a single gesture of his hands, the words on the Dark One’s contracts shifted and changed, Aurora scanning them with sudden fear that she had been tricked once more, only to find names changed, her name suddenly in the place of Rumplestiltskin’s. _He didn’t trick me._ _I don’t understand_. The Dark One always tricked everyone, always had an underlying reason for every action he did. Engaging in a simple trade of property was not his method of operation and yet, by all accounts, it was what he was giving to her – a contract, now held in her name, in exchange for a compass. “Why are you doing this? What are you going to do with it?” she demanded as Rumplestiltskin rose, watching as he paused and turned on his heel, leaning on his cane. She should have been afraid of what happened then, of his reaction to her sudden outburst and insistent tone of voice, but there was nothing, only silence in the cavity in her chest.

“Just like you Princess, I lost something important to me,” he answered, voice calm and soft, “but I intend to find it, with this little compass that worked so well for you. Now, if that’ll be all, I bid you a good day, your highness.” Donning his hat, he tipped it towards her in a display of unexpected deference and exited the diner, leaving just as much as unexplained as before, leaving Aurora wondering if she had not just damned the entirety of the world, for the sake of her justice.

 

 

Hook found her only two days later as she walked to the high school, hand reaching out to grasp painfully tight on her shoulders. Pain she could still feel; it didn’t need her heart to inspire it, and it was one of the few reminders that she was real.

“You hold my contract.” The words left his mouth like a curse. “Look sweetheart, I know we’ve had our past differences, but if you’d be so _kind_ as to release me from it, we can go our different ways, as I’m sure you don’t have the greatest fondness for me.”

Aurora glanced up, raising her eyebrows. Was he trying to play on the hatred and anger she had once felt, once she had realised that he had taken her heart? _It’s not in here anymore for you to use against me, Hook_. “No. I won’t. I like to see people pay for the things that they have done, to see _justice_. _A true kingdom is measured by the blind justice it dispenses_ , my father said.” Her father, lost and gone. Was he here, in this world too? Or had he died, fighting for his people, for _their_ people? “I paid for this contract, and I will use it, in due time. You will, at the very least, recompense me for the theft of my heart.” She wasn’t exactly sure when she had decided to use the contract, but she had, and the knowledge that she could exact the justice she deserved soothed her. _I can’t get my heart back, but you’ll pay for taking it in the first place._

But his eyes showed something haunted and wary as she looked again, and Aurora glanced back down at her feet. _It is dangerous to confuse justice with vengeance_ , Mulan had said, and Aurora had not heeded her then. Perhaps she should heed her now, to pay her back for all the things that the warrior woman did for her, for all the protection and companionship she provided when Aurora lacked all others. “I’ll decide today what is required of you, Hook. I’ll be at Granny’s Diner later,” she said, and then readjusted the straps of her bag and walked away.

 

 

“Well, what do you want?”

Hook had arrived shortly after she had, a wild look in his eyes that spoke of the fear of what Aurora could force him to do with just one order as he had sat down in the seat and demanded to know what she wished of him. He was a pirate, she mused, and a pirate longed for freedom above all. What she had, and what he had signed away, stripped him of that freedom, or his life, or his everything, depending on the words that left her lips. It was a twisted power, one that could be used to harm and curse, and Aurora disliked it, though it was too late to return it. _And he’ll think me weak if I don’t use it._

It wasn’t like she wanted to take his heart. It wasn’t like she wanted to curse him and make him feel the same ache that she did. She just wanted _justice_. All Aurora wanted was for him to know the consequences of his actions.

“You could have been like this too,” she told him, running a finger along the top of the milkshake glass. It sung out at her touch, the sound hovering in the air and in her ears. _Pretty, like windchimes_. “The Dark One could have ripped out your heart and made you like this too. Maybe then, you wouldn’t have attacked him. You wouldn’t have felt for Milah at all, not then. You’d have remembered it, but the feelings would have disappeared. Suddenly, revenge would have just seemed to be a foolish thought, the product of a mind that had been compromised by irrational emotions.” She paused, finger halting on the lip of the glass before glancing up.

Though he didn’t physically recoil at the sight of her wide, blank gaze, his eyes did. His eyes widened a little, lips pressing ever so slightly more together. “I think you’d have been a better pirate if he had taken your heart from you. You’d have known who to cross and who not to cross. Been a more prudent one, one not so likely to make as many foolish decisions.”

“We all do foolish things,” he replied, though his voice held a tremor that betrayed him. Was his fear of her and what she might ask, or the fact that now she knew what had occurred to him? Did his voice tremble because he knew what it might feel like to place his hand inside his chest and pull out his own beating heart, the heartstrings snapping with each tug to rend the organ from its rightful place in the body? “Angering a Dark One usually presents a lowered chance of survival, I’ll agree to that, but surely you’d have done the same sweetheart. After all, didn’t you try to kill the milady over there for your love?” The grin returned to his face as he leaned forward over the booth, bringing their faces in closer. _He’s mimicking intimacy. Trying to subconsciously persuade me into thinking we have a kinship of some kind_. And they did, in a way – no one ever forgot the person who ripped their heart out.

She drew back, finger falling from the glass to the booth’s surface. “I could ask you to rip your heart out, you realise. That’s what justice is meant to be, yes? An eye for an eye, a torn out heart for a torn out heart.” Her brow furrowed. Rarely did justice mirror back the same act – a thief lost a hand, rather than suffered a theft, a man who spoke against his king lost his life. _Maybe I ought to ask for more then_. But what more was there that the pirate before her could offer? He had stolen her heart, and there was nothing that he could do to compensate for its loss. _I don’t want anything from you, Hook. I just want the heart I can never place back in my chest. I just want to go back to feeling again._

His face paled at her words, perhaps, for the first time, understanding that without her heart, no mercy or story could sway her. She had no emotions for his charm to work on, only the blank logic left to her in her mind. “Is that the favour you want from me? You want me to rip out my heart and hand it over to you, Princess?”

“No, I don’t want your heart.” _I want mine, and you’ll give it to me._ The idea dawned to her slowly, the only thing she could possibly want from a pirate like him in her current state, the only thing he alone could provide to her – or _would_ provide to her. Her heart couldn’t be placed in her chest to make her feel once more, but there were other ways to give her emotion, and he, of all people, would not be averse to getting them for her.

“You broke me. Reached into my chest and pulled out my heart, and now it can never be put back in. You broke me.” There was no condemnation or anger in her words, and _that_ , more than anything else, was what Aurora thought caused the pirate before her to stiffen as if she had hit him. Anger, she figured, he could understand, and the same went for condemnation, but the simple statement of fact, irrefutable, was harder to shrug easily away with a simple _well, I_ am _a pirate, sweetheart_. There was no overreaction to make fun of, no weakness to exploit, only the cold, cruel certainty that he had been responsible for the move that had taken the plucky princess and replaced her with a stone cold mannequin with her resemblance. “Gutted me like you would a fish, pulled out all my insides and discarded them away. _But I want them back_. Taking my heart doesn’t stop me from knowing what I’m suddenly missing. I know happiness, and sadness, love and loneliness, and I can’t have any of them, can’t have my heart put back in my chest without it consuming me, and can’t go near it without acutely pining for it. So you’re going to do what I want, and fulfil your contract to me, Hook. You’re going to make me feel again.”

His reaction wasn’t as she had hoped, no easy laugh and quick grin saying, _well, that’s easy to do_. There was no quick fix, not even one that a pirate, who has travelled the world and amassed rare and great treasures, knew. By rights, she ought to have taken her words back, to hold them in until she found something else that Captain Hook could do for her, but the only thing she wanted was her ability to feel again. The thought consumed her, how she might circle and avoid the consequences of restoring her heart to her body, and so she lets the silence permeate the air between them until the seriousness in her wish sunk in to the pirate. And when it does, he leaned back, all pretense of closeness gone, only resignation and exasperation painted on his expression. “ _How_ , Princess? In case you forgot in the time it took you to make that speech, you _haven’t got a heart_.”

Aurora shrugged. That was her wish, but it was his dilemma as to know how to fulfil it.  “A heart holds emotion, not sensation. Give me a chemical to take the place of a heart, and supply it to me until I can feel on my own again, and your contract is fulfilled. You’ll even get paid for it. Now, isn’t that a reward too good for the likes of you?”

His jaw clenched as Hook rose from the seat. “Right. I’ll see what I can manage, Princess.” And with a mocking bow, he left.

  
  


They met in the shadows, Hook rightly afraid of the consequences of supplying Aurora. “The Swan girl is going to have my head for this, you know? Or your little swordswoman,” he’d told her, but she’d shrugged, and handed over the money, eager and impatient for the drugs he promised her. It was the last thread that she held onto, the idea that she could feel again. Even if it was real, a product of a chemical in her blood, it was still _something_. He shook his head the first time as he pocketed the money and drew out the tiny packet of glowing powder, placing it in her hand.

“What is this, fairy dust?” she’d asked, opening the bag to rub the small granules between her fingers. There was no sudden glow of warmth inside of her, nothing to suggest any return of emotion, but she ignored the insistent voice in her mind that told her it wouldn’t work. “Do I just… inhale it?”

Hook chuckled, a warm sound in the darkness. “No Princess, this is _pixie_ dust. Fairy dust is magical – pixie dust is lesser, lower quality fairy dust really. Less transforming into rainbows and puppies, more general euphoric kick. Makes you feel like you’re flying… or so I’ve heard. You want to put it on your tongue. Effect might be slow, but it works, for sure.”

“Still only speaking from what you’ve heard?” she retorted, as she drew her finger out of the bag, the golden glow of the dust clinging to its tip. There was another laugh, soft and grudgingly given, but Aurora paid it no mind as she placed her fingertip onto her tongue. It tasted strange, not like any kind of food she’d ever known, but more like sensations – sunlight on skin, a warmth rising in her mouth that spread through her body as she stood there, waiting for the effect to finish.

“Don’t use it all at once though,” Hook advised, leaning forward to watch her closely, his hand reaching to tilt her chin upwards so he could look into her eyes. Was he looking for sign of emotion returning to her, waiting to see if he knew a way to fulfil his contract with her? “Only a little bit at a time, otherwise you start running down the street, stark naked and then your warrior woman would _definitely_ be taking something from my body. Are we understood, Princess?”

She could _feel_ it, slowly but steadily growing in her body. _Wonder_. Numbed and faint to be sure, but wonder all the same, and with it came other sensations. The faintest stirrings of happiness, coiling somewhere in her chest and then –

She _smiled_. Without forcing the muscles to move and contract, without a conscious decision. “I can _feel_..” she whispered out, clutching a hand to her mouth as she stifled a laugh – a _laugh_. All these things, she’d never thought to have again, were _there_.

“Well congratulations Princess. You know where to reach me, when you need more,” was his reply, and though he tried to hide it, she saw the ghost of a smile on his face as he walked away and left her with the glowing powder that restored part of what had been lost to her.

 

 

The happiness never lasted long, fading away gradually until she was left, once more, in the hollow ache of emotionlessness. It seemed to hurt worse then, after experiencing an elation so high that it felt like she was the sun and radiating out happiness and joy with every _breath_ she took. And what was worse was the _tiredness_ that came as the effects of the powder dissipated, the lethargy that drained her dry. He gave her other things, drugs from both worlds, to help her regain other sensations, but the lethargy never abated. There was always a price to pay, and for all the highs she felt in the grasp of the chemicals, she felt the lows the most.

It was contentment that she began to long for the most. The others she could feel through the chemicals that Hook supplied her with, but not contentment, the steady enjoyment of life like a warm spring day, where the air was pleasant and the weather fine, not too warm, not too cold, and the songbirds sung in the trees. That kind of serenity had been lost to her, the middle ground between peace and ecstasy, and Aurora didn’t know how to regain it. Morphine gave her peace, as well as marijuana, while speed and Ecstasy gave her the rush, the euphoria, her life becoming a ride of chemical highs and lows, and she longed for the steady peace of contentment, but no drug could give her that.

But even the lows were worth the high, and worth the toll it took on her if it meant she could, for a small space of time, feel again.

Aurora told no one of what she did in the dead of night, or how she could smile and laugh without a hollow tone permeating through her voice. She told no one of the cravings for her emotions, or the insistent need she had to gain more of the powders and vials of liquids, brushing away the words said to her and the furrowed glances that came from Hook as she begun to call on his services more often. “Aren’t you happy to be fulfilling your contract?” she asked when he protested to her third sale in a week, and he had stared after her as she taken the packet of pixie dust from his hand and ran away before she could think of how her cravings had reduced her thoughts to how soon she could take another hit of the powders he supplied.

 

 

“What are you _doing_ to her?”

“I asked him to, Mulan. I asked him to get me these things!” Aurora exclaimed, backing away from Hook as Mulan advanced. She should have known that Mulan would find out, having had grown careless, but covering her tracks had been the last thing on Aurora’s mind when she had snuck out in the dark night to meet Hook again. All that had ruled her mind was the desire to feel again and to stop the shaking of her body. “I _need_ them.”

Even after seven months of hearing her emotionless voice, Mulan still flinched away from it. _She knows it’s not me. She knows I’m meant to be more than this_. “I _need_ to feel things, even just _chemical_ things.” Aurora continued, avoiding Mulan’s gaze, unsure if she wanted to see what was written there. Disappointment? Shame? A princess wasn’t _meant_ to be beholden to packets of powders, but Aurora was. _If my parents saw me now…_ “My heart isn’t here to do it anymore, but these chemicals – the pixie dust, the drugs, they _do_. They can let me feel happy again, and I _miss_ happy, Mulan. I _miss_ enjoying the summer days and enjoying a horse or laughing.”

“Then we’ll get you back your heart! Aurora, I’ve been asking you for _months_ to go back home, to _find_ your heart and restore it to you-“

Aurora shook her head, and the single action was enough to halt Mulan’s words. She glanced upwards, watching as Mulan’s face drained of colour as the plan was once more rejected. How many times had Aurora refused to travel back to the Enchanted Kingdom? It was selfish of her, Aurora knew that, but she couldn’t. So much had been lost there that couldn’t be regained – her soul, Philip’s heart, her home in the Sands. “I can’t. I can’t have it back,” Aurora answered. She should have been weeping – she had before, coming down from the highs when her thoughts turned melancholy – cried and screamed into her pillow in grief for all the things lost, but she didn’t cry now. She had no heart to feel the loss, and no powders in her blood to make up for its absence.

“When magic takes a heart from someone, it makes it more powerful. The magic bleeds into the heart to keep it alive, to keep the link between body and heart and, in return, the heart absorbs it. I _can’t_ have my heart anymore, Mulan – my body would never handle it. It would begin to kill me as soon as it entered my chest, and I’d spend the last days of my life in agony as my heart – my _heart_ – began to destroy me. I can _never_ have my heart again.”

“So you use _these_? I swore to Philip that I would –“

“Protect me?” How could she make Mulan _see_? This wasn’t a wilful child reaching for the things that would irk those around her, this was a desperate soul reaching for the things that could hold her together.  How could she explain how it felt to not feel, when Mulan _could_ feel? Aurora would never have understood the sensation, had it been explained to her when she’d had a heart. It was impossible to comprehend the way it felt to _not_ feel, but she had to try. “Mulan, this… I _need_ these. Not feeling is… there’s _nothing_. The sun shines and you feel _nothing_. Someone dies and you feel _nothing_. And I still remember that I can, that I used to be able to. That my mother’s favourite sound was that of my laughter, and I don’t even know how to laugh anymore unless I use these. I _abhor_ it when I can, but that’s the thing. Most of the time Mulan, I _can’t_. I don’t like anything, I don’t hate anything – I’m blank, and dead. And if I go back home, I’ll feel – but all I’ll feel is grief for the world that I’ve lost, for my father and mother and Philip. I’d rather be here than there, and use what Hook gives me, no matter the cost.”

The swordswoman’s eyes flicked between Hook and Aurora, hands clenched together. “Next time I see you giving her _anything_ Hook, I’ll take your other hand,” Mulan growled out through clenched teeth before turning to Aurora.

It was only then that Aurora saw the sheen of her eyes, and realised that Mulan had tears for her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and was surprised by Mulan’s arms coming around her to embrace her.

“I’m sorry I failed you, Aurora,” Mulan whispered, before all went black.

 

 

They held her separately from all the other patients of the hospital, her screams upsetting the other patients. Tied to the bed, she wrenched and raged and screamed, though her mind didn’t understand why, strugglingly against the Velcro ties that held her down. Her body screamed for the drugs suddenly removed from her system, _needing_ that chemical rush, while her mind told her that if she still had her heart, she’d not need the rush at all. Mind and body clashed in a perplexing and strange way, if there was no middle ground to breach the gap. Aurora had never quite known just how much her heart could do, until it wasn’t there to do it. Her body shook and trembled, rejecting all food that Doctor Whale gave to her while phantom itches threatened to drive her to insanity.

Outside her room, the world continued, voices soft so they did not disturb the girl inside.

“What’s happening to her? Whale won’t let me in to see her.” Mulan, her voice raised and loud, even despite the shushes and murmurs of the other. _Concern, worry_.

“She’s in withdrawal from the drugs Hook gave her.” Emma, voice practical though her tone held something else. Disgust? _Are you disgusted with me, Emma?_

“Well, aren’t there meant to be some kind of program for this kind of thing here? Where you wean her off? _She’s not meant to scream!_ ”

“We’ve tried Mulan, we _have_.” Snow’s voice, placating. Aurora could imagine Snow placing her arms on Mulan and trying to soothe her with tiny pats, just like she had when Aurora had been afraid to sleep.

“Hook skipped town, Mulan. Skipped town, left Aurora in the lurch, and now we can’t even get any of that damned dust to wean her off it slowly. I tell you, when I get my hands on that man, I’m going to wrench his head from his shoulders for getting her hooked on that shit.”

_I wasn’t hooked on the dust_ , Aurora thought as the trembling racked her body again, _I was hooked on feeling again._

 

 

He had expected something… _grander_.

He should have known better of course. Those months spent with Cora had proven her to be a woman of practicality, rather than excessive vanity, and a jewel encrusted box never served better than a less ornate one, unless the purpose was simply to give him more coin when he fenced it to the thieves of the world. But that had never been the purpose of the box, and as such, it was plain, indistinguishable from every box around it except for the carefully marked _Aurora_ on the lid of the box. A plain wooden box, housing an extraordinary object. _A princess’ heart, and all that goes with it_.A thing that, on the outside, appeared disposable and worthless, but Hook knew its worth. The contents of the box were priceless, and though he might have usually have fenced it for an exorbitant price, he knew that such an action was not an option.

Perhaps it was a matter of his honour, whatever little he claimed to have – to return what he had stolen and undo his wrongs – but then, if he lived by that, he wouldn’t have been much of a pirate at all. No, it wasn’t that, though he’d loftily claim it as such if any ever brought it up to him, before noting, as if in afterthought, that by returning to Aurora her heart, he was freed from any more stipulations in his contract to her. Lying, after all, had become easy to him somewhere along the line, and he could pretend that it was anything other than regret at his action and horror at what he had reduced the princess to that had sent him through the portal. Not many would defy people such as Cora so defiantly, but she had, fearlessly, _boldly_ , and in those moments in the pit, the Princess Aurora had exhibited greater fearlessness than he had in front of Cora, and he could respect that, pirate though he was. He hadn’t understood that taking her heart would mean separating her from herself. Surely, that was more to do with the removal of a soul, yes?

But he’d been wrong, and the further Aurora moved from her heart, the more he saw it. The glimmers had left her eyes first, and then her sharp wit had followed. Emotional reactions had become harder to find, and then even physical reactions – dilation of pupils, increases in breathing – had become altogether absent. It was like he had ripped out whatever fire she had inside of her instead of her heart, and watching those blank eyes bore into him, day after day in Storybrooke, or her mindless pursuit of emotion through chemicals, caused his gut to twist inside of him. _You could have been like this too,_ she’d said, and that night, he had tossed in his bed, dreaming of the damned Crocodile tearing out his heart and the slow loss of all that he was. He couldn’t restore her heart to her, he could, at least, give her back her connection to it.

So that plain wooden box, with its precious cargo, found itself gently placed in his satchel and carried across the Enchanted Kingdom, into the world of Storybrooke. It was there, in that strange foreign world they now called home, that he hid it underneath the floorboards of Aurora’s bedroom. _I call us even now, Princess – as even as we’re ever going to be._ It was all he could do, and all he could hope was that it was enough to stop the twinges of guilt that roiled in his stomach at the sight her blank expressions and vacant eyes.

 

 

The next day, Hook, head covered, wandered into Storybrooke hospital, searching her out. It wasn’t hard to find her, with just a wink here and a sly remark there. One of the many advantages to this world, he had found, was that fewer people believed that sexual endeavours should remain solely in marriage beds, making Hook greatly fond of this world. It had its charms he supposed, and some were much greater than others. As he wandered past her open door, he saw it.

Wonder and hope, two emotions so foreign to him since Milah’s death, both inspired by the soft upward pull of Aurora’s lips into the beginning of the smallest of smiles as she sat upright, no longer the nervous desperate wreck that had come to him demanding drugs, but the princess who had fought against Cora and accompanied him to the beanstalk. _Well, what do you know._ _Sometimes_ , he thought in a rare fit of poetic expression as he watched _, two broken things can form a whole_.

He smiled, backing away from the door and turning around. She wasn’t whole, but she wasn’t broken either, and Hook would be lying if he said that the thought wasn’t something he was proud of causing.


End file.
